Guidelines for the Europe 2020 Employment Policies (Decision)

Member States have agreed to improve the coordination of their employment policies, in the scope of the Europe 2020 strategy. To this end, the Commission presented to the Council guidelines for employment policies outlining the direction which educational, labour and social policies of Member States should take. The headline targets of the guidelines are identical to those proposed to the European Council within the context of the Europe 2020 strategy.

cepPolicyBrief

The Commission reiterates the numerical headline targets concerning education and poverty, despite the fact that the European Council expressly rejected numerical targets. Many of the measures proposed to reach the targets are to be welcomed. However, it cannot be ignored that the setting of targets is not in line with the delimitation of competences and almost all proposals for the implementation of the set targets infringe the principle of subsidiarity.